Sri
Lanka Gets UN
Legal Chair,
Absurd,
Sartre-Translator
Gets Human
Rights
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
October 1 --
UN dysfunction
was on display
on the last
day
of General
Debate
speeches and
beginning of
Committee work
on
Tuesday.
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
spokesperson
Martin Nesirky
postponed the
day's briefing
in deference
to the speech
by Israel's
Benjamin
Netanyahu, but
then talked
over Iran's
reply. (Click
here
for Inner City
Press questioning
and video.)
After
Iran's
talked-over
reply, there
was back and
forth between
Libya's
past and
current
Ambassador
Dabbashi and
Bolivia's
Sacha
Llorenti.
Evo Morales
had noted that
the change of
regime in
Libya led to
changes in who
got the oil;
Dabbashi said
Bolivia was
mourning the
loss of
Gaddafi as a
funder.
Later
in the
afternoon new
President of
the General
Assembly John
Ashe
lavished
praise on
Dabbashi, a
bit over the
top and
seeming to
take
sides, given
the context.
But perhaps
Bolivia will
get a
committee,
as Dabbashi
got the chair
of the First
Committee. (A
diplomat from
Iran became
the rapporteur,
with
Montenegro as
a vice chair.)
Palitha
Kohona
of Sri Lanka,
a country
recently
lambasted by
the UN's Navi
Pillay for
intimidating
witnesses to
the killing of
tens of
thousands
of civilians
in 2009 was
named the
chair of, what
else, the UN's
Sixth (Legal)
Committee.
In
his speech,
Kohona said
these are
challenging
times for
particular
member states.
You don't say.
But despite
Pillay, Sri
Lanka seems to
still "have"
Ban. He is
withholding
the most
recent report
on action and
inaction in
Sri Lanka in
2009. What
leverage will
the
Sixth
Committee give
Sri Lanka?
The
Fifth (Budget)
Committee
strangely
stayed with
the Western
European
and Other
Group, WEOG --
from Germany's
Peter Berger
to Finland's
affable Janne
Taalas. But
voting on the
vice chairs
was put off,
as
it was for the
Second
Committee,
with Senegal
as the chair.
A
Sartre-translator
from Bulgaria
got the Third
Committee,
with vice
chairs from
Lebanon and
Iceland. The
Fourth, on
Decolonization,
went
to El
Salvador.
Western
Sahara,
Gibraltar, and
even Puerto
Rico, get
ready. Watch
this site.
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